Whisper of Yesterday
by Silatyr
Summary: Ninjas are not meant to survive once they are no longer able to fight, but she was one of the few forgotten ones that did survive. She looks back to her past now, lacking any future but eventual death. One-shot songfic.


A/N: Don't own... this is set to Alison Krauss lyrics. I'll tell you who the characters were at the very end.  
  
Old age.  
  
It was the one thing that the ninja academy never prepared you for, for what could they do? Ninjas were trained solely as weapons, and as their bodies aged, they gradually began to loose their abilities. As unlikely as it was that a ninja would survive to adulthood, it did sometimes occur. And when it did, the ninja in question was left to slowly decay.  
  
I don't pick up the mail  
  
I don't pick up the phone  
  
After all, there was nothing else that they could do. Just as I have, they must simply live the rest of their lives waiting for death to take them. Luckiness meant nothing but that you died sooner rather than later. I had never been trained in anything but the fighting arts- none of us were. And with all of our attention and time focused on becoming the strongest, there was no reason to care about much else. I had no skills beyond those of the simplistic survival tactics I used on missions. I have no abilities left that would validate my existance.  
  
I don't answer the door  
  
I'd just as soon be alone  
  
I have no job, no dreams, and no hopes... I am useless. Worthless. I am a shell of what I once was. Nothing is left here that means anything, even to me.  
  
I don't keep this place up  
  
I just keep the lights down  
  
It's the most I can do to force myself to breathe. One breath at a time, one step at a time, I make my way around these musty rooms. There is too much space here- too much room to contemplate. I can hardly hope to use many of these rooms myself, and the emptiness of the remaining rooms only serves to remind me of the emptiness in other parts of my life: comrades who died long before me, dreams that I had to throw away, and even my falsely gilded dreams of what life within these rooms might be.  
I don't live in these rooms  
  
I just rattle around  
  
I always thought that I would feel so comfortable here, but in truth, there is an ever-present coldness. I have no connection to this house. Neither do you, I suppose. Neither did you. But that was different from the beginning.  
  
I'm just a ghost in this house  
  
I'm just a shadow upon these walls  
  
As quietly as a mouse I haunt these halls  
  
So now I just wander through these empty corridors. Am I meant to give up the rest of my life to this insane idiocracy? I always promised myself, as all children do, that I would do Great Things and live Happily Ever After, but I see no After for me because there was never a Happily.  
  
I'm just a whisper of smoke  
  
I'm all that's left of two hearts on fire  
  
That once burned out of control  
  
You took my body and soul  
  
I'm just a ghost in this house  
  
So now I am reduced to one of the two wraiths that are left nothing by fate but to walk these halls till death do they part from their bodies and from one another. However, it's quite clear that death was not what was needed to part us. We were never truely together in anything but my imagination, and we drift farther from each other and, I fear, from sanity as well with each day that passes.  
  
I don't care if it rains  
  
I don't care if it's clear  
  
I see nothing but these walls now. They hold me in, caging me... yet I do not fight to leave their prison. Why should it matter any longer? My life is already spent.  
  
I don't mind staying in  
  
There's another ghost here  
  
And you don't fight the cage either. You lost the energy for that the moment you defeated your nemesis and simultaneously crushed all of your dreams to dust.  
  
He sits down in your chair  
  
And he shines with your light  
  
And he lays down his head  
  
On your pillow at night  
  
You may not look the same any more- age has deformed your face almost as much as it has to mine, twisting it into deep valleys and stretching your skin thinly over your bones. But I know that it is you, or rather, all that is left of you. There's only a shell now where you once stood so boldly and coldly. Now you no longer feel any need to defend your honor, or to even answer at all. I cannot hate you, nor can I love you, for what you have become, for I am the same. We are both walking corpses who would prefer the grave to the sky. Our eyes are clouded by our failings and we are blind to the stars that once gleamed so brightly, now only looking to our feet in percieved disgrace.  
  
I'm just a ghost in this house  
  
I'm just a shadow upon these walls  
  
I'm living proof of the damage  
  
Heartbreak does  
  
I've fallen apart over these years, and I know it all too well. I could have born the pain of my aging if only I had been alone during it, but watching you loose your will to live has thoroughly torn me to pieces. I will never tell you now, because you would no longer care.  
  
I'm just a whisper of smoke  
  
I may still be here-  
  
I'm all that's left of two hearts on fire  
  
...but I will not linger much longer. My time as a ninja is gone, and so am I.  
  
That once burned out of control  
  
And took my body and soul  
  
I'm just a ghost in this house  
  
Oh, I'm just a ghost in this house  
  
Farewell, my ghost of former hope... may you find your own salvation or conclusion one day. I wish you death, just as you would wish it for yourself if you could still understand wishes.  
  
Farewell.  
  
A/N: For those who didn't figure it out, Sakura was narrating and the guy in the house was Sasuke. Mmmm... angst. 


End file.
